Pastor's Perspective      

Why does God have your church in this place at this time? 

By Keith Robinson, Senior Pastor, Riverwood Covenant Church

For a small, new church it is especially important to recognize its purpose. At Riverwood Covenant we came across a verse that does that for us: "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" Galatians 5:6(b) (NIV).

We pretty clearly understood that our mission was to simply keep the cross of Jesus central (faith), and at the same time "express love" to our community. How were we to accomplish this?

Community Helping Community 

We set about to praying, and finally came the vision: "Community helping Community." To accomplish this, we established a separate nonprofit called "RiverWorks Community Development Organization," with the Northwest Conference serving as an early sponsor. We were to seek to meet needs in our community by partnering with whoever else wanted to do just that.

Before long, the need for a community food shelf was discovered ... so, one was launched, partnering with various like-minded entities: civic groups, labor unions, school districts and city government, business, corporate and professional communities, nonprofits, churches and Christian organizations. Soon, over 500 people per month were being served by the food shelf.

Building Relationships 

Next up, we were able to help build relationships within and between community families with a summer-long, weekly community event featuring horseback rides, picnic dinner, games and story time around a bonfire. Hundreds of people came from every walk of life, sharing laughter, food and fellowship.

We noticed the need for low-priced clothing and household goods, so we opened up a thrift store to address these needs as well as to help fund other outreaches. We also noticed that people feel really good about serving, improving community conditions and working together. So we started a community service day, called "Thousand Hearts Crow River Serve Day," to address the areas of hunger, health and habitation.

Faith Expressing Itself in Love